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When looking for inspiration to create photographic shootings we often browse through photographic books from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, and realize they all invariably looked the epitome of refinement and class, even when the women they portray are not actually that stunning. As a result, you try to reproduce in your shots that kind of refinement, with very little success.

I'm not saying we should "remake" or "copy" those pictures, which would be like going back, but to revive that kind of long-gone elegance and charm wouldn't be such a bad idea. Looking at the images of women that get published today, maybe those old sophisticated pictures wouldn't be so successful. The majority of people would probably not understand them. Yet re-educating ourselves about beauty could maybe be appreciated. At least to try to curb the level of tackiness we are dished out by all those gossip magazines.

Thinking with horror about what we are about to face come summer which, translated into magazine pages, means exposed flesh and ridiculous outfits. We wonder whether in the past people were actually more elegant, or maybe the photographs looked more artistic, or simply if the women were more good-looking. We can't really say, however, that we feel this way only looking at the pictures of great photographers such as Cecil Beaton, Horst, Capa, Henry Cartier Bresson, Avedon, Penn, to name just a few, because browsing through old family pictures found in boxes or albums we always get the feeling that all women truly looked chicer.

And this is in no way related to social class, or wealth. It was everywhere. The layout of the pictures, the clothes, the faces each time are like a new discovery, even though we've seen those pictures many times before. I have browsed through books and seen exhibition countless times, yet each time I feel new emotions, because each time I find new, captivating details. What is it that has changed? For a start, the quality of black and white pictures was higher compared to present day. Ten years ago everybody dived headfirst into digital cameras and since then the quality has worsened. And Photoshop put the finishing touch.

There is no truth in pictures. They often look fake, as if digital cameras or special quality-improving effects had stripped off all signs of life from faces and bodies. The quest for perfection deletes all flaws. Yet those very flaws made the faces and bodies of the women portrayed at the time truly unforgettable. Also the posture was naturally more elegant, and the bodies, far from being perfect, showed refined movements or little gestures.

Fashion was more or less beautiful, according to the period. But women never looked tacky or vulgar. Even in his Polaroid pictures Carlo Mollino portrayed women wearing skimpy underwear in sexy poses that retained a kind of graceful attitude. There are photographers today that still print on paper or even use "old-fashioned" cameras and "old-style" film like the Polaroid. And you can see the difference. Some of them still try to capture the beauty of a woman enhancing her personality, and this shows though in their work. Yet they are becoming less and less. Technology is a marvelous, magical medium to discover new ways to evolve and improve.

Such a widespread use of technology has enabled many to define themselves as photographers, often without quality. The women might have not been more beautiful or elegant, yet they were portrayed with care and attention, an approach that today is neglected when creating striking images only designed to excite the imagination of readers and people in general.

The frantic search for something new makes us forget that the real subject is beauty, and the woman, both sacrificed to create visual shocks. Women and their true beauty. Not the glossy, uninteresting kind of beauty. Without mentioning that, still in the name of the “modern” image, sometimes the flashiest and tackiest outfits photograph better than the chic ones. And, as a result, we get characterless and badly-dressed women. This is why we miss not good old times, not photographers from the past, but quality. And this is why women from the past always look more beautiful in our eyes.